by KMiller | Nov 24, 2018 | Personal Development
Have you ever set a goal for yourself, and been completely excited to do it, but then your excitement fizzled? Me, too. It usually happens when the goal is more long-term, right?
In Plan or Fail, Your Choice, I mentioned my pushup challenge. It’s one of those physically and mentally challenging long-term goals (for me, maybe not someone who’s super fit) that is really easy to drop. But, I haven’t.
My family friend you met in that earlier post wanted to know the “why” behind my pushups. Simon Sinek is famous for posing this question as it applies to work and leaders, and I think it’s just as useful when applied to building a habit.
What keeps a person pushing to the end goal? What’s the “why?” Yes, it’s true that we’re all different, but here’s where some of us are the same: persistence, tenacity, endurance — whatever you want to call it — some of us have a lot more of it than other people. It’s considered a personality trait and is associated with conscientiousness (De Fruyt, Van De Wiele, & Van Heeringen, 2000).
Let me be clear — persistence from a psychology perspective is “voluntary continuation of a goal-directed action in spite of obstacles, difficulties, or discouragement” (Dean, 2018). It’s not the same as resilience (we’ll talk about that another time.)
So if it’s a personality trait, can we become more persistent? If so, how? Dean (2018) offers several ideas, among them, are finishing what you start, but doing it ahead of schedule; and, set a goal and create a plan to stick to it. Easy, right? Nope. But you already knew that. It’s probably gonna hurt a little.
Like pushups.
But, once your body gets used to doing wall pushups, you can move to knees-on-floor pushups, and before you know it, you’ll be doing military pushups. Each position becomes easier. You begin to celebrate the small successes. When you do that, you’re encouraged to “keep moving forward” (Gotta love Walt Disney.)
This is how you build persistence. It’s one bite-size step at a time + celebrating successes along the way.
References:
- Cloninger, C.R.; Svrakic, DM; Przybeck, TR (December 1993). “A psychobiological model of temperament and character”. Archives of General Psychiatry. 50 (12): 975-90.
- doi:10.1001/archpsyc.1993.01820240059008. PMID 8250684.
- De Fruyt, F; Van De Wiele, L; Van Heeringen, C (2000). “Cloninger’s Psychobiological Model of Temperament and Character and the Five-Factor Model of Personality”. Personality and Individual Differences. 29 (3): 441–452. doi:10.1016/S0191-8869(99)00204-4. ISSN 0191-8869.
- Dean, B. “Persistence.” Retrieved from https://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/newsletters/authentichappinesscoaching/persistence
by KMiller | Nov 23, 2018 | Personal Development
Recently, during a holiday get-together, I was asked why I do so many push-ups. “What’s the point?” she asked. “Is there some health benefit to doing so many?”
Let me back up a beat …
About a month ago I decided to challenge myself to complete 1000 push-ups in a single day. The idea didn’t come out of thin air. I’d finished listening to a book whose author had accomplished this in a single month of training with a former Navy Seal. I’d become bored with my workout routine and needed a new challenge. This seemed perfect!
But then it wasn’t.
I was being pretty lazy about increasing my daily count. Why? I have no idea. Letting it slide just felt okay. After all, no one was holding me accountable for reaching my goal — not even me apparently! My daily minimum was set at 25 pushups even though I’d been doing 100 regularly for months and in as fast a time as possible no less! Hmmm. What’s going on? Why wasn’t I committed to my new goal?
Have you ever forgotten to actually create a plan for accomplishing your goals? Me, too. And that’s what happened here. A plan guides our thoughts and actions. The idea of doing 1000 pushups in a single day was overwhelming. I needed to break it down into bite-size chunks. So, that’s what I did. My minimum every day is 100 pushups and I add 25 to that each day. But here’s the kicker — okay, there’s two — if I can’t increase by 25 on a given day, then I don’t worry about it, the next day, I just pick up where I left off. I also set a top goal. This is the number I can’t EXCEED each day. Here’s how this played out the day after Thanksgiving: On the holiday, I completed 375 pushups. That was my top target. Even though I reached it by early afternoon and could have done more, I didn’t. This meant that the day after my top target was 400. I finished those by around 5 p.m. Could I have done more? Yes. Did I? Nope.
Burnout is a real thing. How many times have you announced you’re going to start a new exercise habit, attacked it with gusto, and then petered out a month or two later? Me, too. Setting boundaries for new goals help reduce the risk of giving up entirely.
I should mention that I did a calculation to figure out how long it might take me to complete 1000 pushups in a day. It turns out, I can realistically hit my target by mid-Decemberish. We shall see …
Lesson #1: PLAN
Next time we’ll talk about “the why” of persisting. It ain’t always easy, but it sure is worth the effort! (Which is what I explained to my family friend who’d asked all those questions about my crazy pushup challenge!)
Kori D. Miller is an author, facilitator, and coach who loves salted white popcorn, NY-style pizza, and exceeding her self-imposed limits.
.
